Murrells Inlet Fishing Report for 2/19 - 2/21/2009

[Blue_Runner]

I took Friday off work last week to do some fishing out of Murrell's Inlet over the weekend with my good friends Chad, Corey and Garrett on Chad's 22 CC "Reel Slick."

Reel Slick had some issues last weekend with water in the gas - a lot of water in the gas! I believe there was more water than gas, if you can believe that! At any rate, last Monday Chad trailered the boat all the way down to Ocean Isle to have it worked on by Jimmy's Marine in hopes of having everything back in order for our trip.

Thursday 6/18

Thursday rolled around and the shop said it would be ready for pickup Thursday evening - perfect! So we hit the road with our sights set on Ocean Isle, the straight to Surfside (near Murrells) so that we could rise early and fish on Friday. Before we left Chad called to ask if they did a water test - NO, so he requested a water test before we picked it up. Three quarters of the way there Jimmy's left a cellphone message saying there was a problem with the engine - apparently during the water test, doh. (Insert Roll-Eye's Smiley here)

Chad is pizzed. The crew is pizzed. To make matters worse Jimmy's is closed and Jimmy's cell number did not come through on Chad's phone. We arrive to closed gates and a ghost town at the shop. Chad did not have a way to contact Jimmy and we could see the dam boat sitting in the yard beyond the locked fence.

We hemmed and hawed around wondering what the hell to do and finally Jimmy called back. They did a pressure test on the tank and it was supposedly good. They kept blaming all this water on ethanol. Finally they come back and say the rubber o-ring seal on the fuel lid was missing and letting water in, which it probably was?? At any rate the water in the engine hosed up an o2 sensor or something (4 stroke motor - I know nothing about!). Chad did some of this and said by gosh we are going fishing...jerk the part off one of the new motors in the yard if you have to!! Jimmy said he'd do everything in his power the next morning so we left without the boat hoping to hear back before noon on Friday so we could get some fishing in. The crew's mood is dismal at this point but Chad remained surprisingly optomistic.

Friday 6/19

The next morning we awoke, got a bite to eat and talked things over. It was a beautiful day so Garrett and I decided to take the 14' mckee craft out for a near shore adventure while Cory and Chad waited to hear from Jimmy. Long story short, Jimmy said it was fixed so Cory and Chad drove back to Ocean Isle, went on a water test with Jimmy and headed back to Surfside around 2 pm. Garrett and I headed in, cleaned the Mckee, and offloaded our tackle onto the CC. We got Reel Slick on the water at 5 pm, headed straight to a spot 13 miles off and proceeded to catch a nice 15 lbish king and lost another. Rode back to a kick *** sunset, cleaned the fish and our arses and went to bed.

Sunset

The fish


Saturday 6/20

Rose up early around 5:30 am. Hit the water at 6:15 am. Headed to a spot 27 miles off called the Jungle. Lines in at 7:30 am. Dead cigar minnows are the bait. The Jolly Mon king mackeral tournament was underway and we knew it could be a "jungle" out there. We arrive to 4 boats fishing. Gradually more and more boats joined in with about 30 other boats at the peak. We saw a lot of fish caught on live bait while we trolled our dead bait. We had our share of bites and ended with 4 kings. The daymaker was around 1 or 2pm when a reel sang and to our surprise a nice mahi did some arial acrobatics for us before popping off. Lines back in and in a matter of minutes we had another dolphin on. Brought him boat side, stuck him and put him in the boat. Problem was these cigar rigs employ a stinger treble hook. That combined with a pizzed off dolphin was not good. I kept the fish on the gaff until I thought he had settled down but when he came off he went nuts (hooks still in mouth). The treble got hooked into a soft cooler we had on deck for bait and Chad came over to help undo the mess while I held the fish. Needless to say the fish went crazy again, this time burying one barb of a treble in Chad's finger - firmly. Chad was stuck to the soft cooler and the other hook was still in the fish. Luckily the fish calmed down and allowed up to free Chad from the cooler and the fish. Now what? While the barb was buried, the point of the hook was slightly visible under the skin. We considered the old fishing-line-yank-it-out-quik trick, but it was at a bad angle for that to work. I ended up using a razor blade knife to cut the skin for the point to show good. Using his left hand Chad cut 2 of the 3 barbs off the treble leaving only the one shank and barb in. Then Garrett took a pair of needle nose pliers, grabbed the point of the hook firmly and pulled it through and out. All the while Cory video taped the incident. A true team effort.
Garrett on the left, me on the right.

A short while later we caught another dolphin before heading in. Got stopped by DNR on the way in and showed him the fish in the fish bag, all good. By the way the total weight of our 6 fish this day was 80 lbs.


Sunday 6/21

Up at 7:30 am. Could not decide whether to fish or head home early. Listened to the WX and decided to fish. Back to the same spot and decided to pull islanders and seawitches with ballyhoo for the meat to see if we could get more dolphin. It was slow up until about 11:00 am. Some flyers started appearing and we got two average kings back to back. Then it slowed for a bit before we started getting barraged by the dolphin. At one point they hit all 5 lines but found no steel (the rigs we used this day did not have stingers). Short time later one found steel, jumped for about 30 seconds and popped off. Bummer. In hind sight, we should have stuck with our cigar minnor rigs for sure. We know next time.
Got back, cleaned the fish, packed up and headed home.


Poor Garrett could not find the "dry spot" on the boat.

The two fish we caught this day


Monday 6/22

Back home I prepared fish-kabobs and we had a late Father's day celebration with my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law and their kids. The kabobs were awesome....eating leftovers again this evening.

Before cooking the fish kabobs


During cooking



Cooked



Tally:

2 dolphin @ 12 - 13 lbs each
7 kings @ 10 - 15 lbs each

P.S. The first king to the side of the boat was lost. Chad was on the gaff and after that we started calling him "Fly Swatter."




Blue

[Stillrunning]

When you hooked up with the dolphin did you keep the boat in gear or put it in neutral?

[Blue_Runner]

Excellent question SR!

We fished 2 different ways. The first day, we used special cigar minnor rigs that consist of about 4ft of wire connected with haywire twist to a red 1 ouce jig head. The rig also has about a 6 inch length attached to the jig head with a stinger treble to hook into the tail. Those rigs swim well at around 3.5 - 4 mph, so in general we did not take the boat out of gear.

The next day we fished islander/seawitch style ballyhoo rigs with heavy mono leaders. We pull these aroun 6.5 - 7 mph. I like throttle back when hooking up at that speed.

I think it boils down to the angler/driver communication. When I'm driving and someone hooks up I say, "talk to me", meaning tell me whether I need to speed up or slow down. On day two we hooked up pretty solid with one dolphin, I was at the wheel and I did not pull it back in time. This causes the fish to jump wildly and he inevitably spit the hook, or at least it did in this situation. Anytime you can get the dolphin to stay in the water I think it helps. JMO

Last year we hooked up with a big boy, had to be over 30. We fought him for a long time, even passed the rod off 3 times. If my memory serves me correctly we put it in neutral during that fight. He came off half way in after some cool jumps.

[Blue_Runner]

I emptied the stomachs on some of the fish. I see now why mahi are the fastest growing fish in the sea. One of them had a 12" flying fish and five 8 in. cigar minnows inside. I found a snelled hook and some heavy mono inside one of the kings...wedged against the anal opening. Surprised it made it that far! Also surprised he got fooled twice! All the kings I checked had menhaden and cigars inside. Very cool!

[Blue_Runner]

Pics now added

[cterrebonne]

i like the hook story on the king, yes those mahi sure grow fast, probably the most fun i have had was fishing for the p-nut dolphins with speckle trout rigs.

[nipper]

Those fish kebabs look mighty tasty. Did you do both the mackerel and the Mahi?

[Blue_Runner]

Yep, did both the king and the mahi on the kabobs....of course there was a noticeable difference with the mahi being much better.

I steaked the kings, then cut each of the 4 round circlular pieces of meat out, which looks kinda like scallops such that they were boneless and skinless. I used old bay seafood seasoning, salt, pepper, and melted butter with fresh squeezed lemon juice. I wrapped some of the meat in bacon and strategically placed onions and peppers. They were really good.

[bradford]

Excellent Report!!!!

[fishingwithblue]

YUMMMMMMMM! BR good job, I haven't caught a mack of any kind yet, been chasing trout and flounder.